SOME MOORLAND BIRDS 75 



sky hailing from the woods miles gathered for their customary evening 

 beyond, passes over on stately, tireless fling, and gentler, mouse-brown sand 

 vans to his favourite fishing grounds martins with lowlier flight, skim like 

 .... The station is at length reached, shadows just above the translucent 



but not without a run to catch the ripples of the darkening river. As 



strangely - punctual train, and half you near your own hearth, a night- 



an hour hence finds you on the tramp jar " churs " to you incessantly, as he 



once again, though now it wants but has done for a fortnight past, and next 



four miles to your own threshold, minute you see him half phantom, 



Birds, too, are still with you. Much half bird in the gloaming glancing 



as you deplore the absence of the with erratic flight over the swaying 



nightingale, the mellowed tones of the tops of the hazels. Then, and not till 



woodlark a notoriously late singer then, will you fully admit that the 



amply repay you. Those gently undu- day is well-nigh spent, 

 lating hills on your left, growing What, all these things to be seen 



blurred and indistinct in the dying in one day ? Yes, and many more 



light, are a noted resort of theirs, and besides. But then have you not been 



more than once you have found the out since four this morning ? it is now 



pro vokingly- well-concealed nest under nine. Have you not broken the back 



the dead bracken, littering the boulder- of forty miles clear ? Well have 



decked slopes ; many a halcyon hour you earned your prospective rest, 



have you spent in the company of the Tiring, did you hear it whispered ? 



alluring woodlark. In the one village Well, possibly for some, but on these 



through which your way lies, scythe- charming Breconshire hills at any rate 



winged swifts, amorous and noisy, are you could keep going for ever. 



